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Donation made, until now all the Gofundme appeals that I have been presented with have been unworthy at best, opportunistic at worst, I am pleased to say that your situation and your brothers words have changed my jaded view. Your PMA will carry you through this and a long way to a new and hopefully better future than the one you had mapped out and worked so hard for, I hope that fate will find a way for you to make a living using the skills, knowledge and enthusiasm that you have gained during your apprenticeship, perhaps training others, perhaps counselling, advising and inspiring others in the future faced with the exact same decisions as you are. In any case good luck and nurture the PMA, it helps others around you without you even knowing it.

Dragonfly on my fence just now. I didn't bother getting my phone out as I knew I wouldn't be quick enough. After three or four minutes I thought well, in for a penny. Dragonfly stayed around for a couple of mins after too. Lovely to see:

Pre-cat lambda had pretty FUBAR-ed wiring. I've taped it up for now. Car has stopped cutting out, although it's only been like this for a few days now, but it just seems better.

Bless you guys. I’m really humbled by your generosity. 🥰 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-during-a-difficult-time?utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

GoFundMe info please? I want to donate.

A few from testing at Brands Hatch yesterday.

I took my car to the dealers last Tuesday with a handful of documentary evidence (thanks to this forum), and, as a result, Skoda technical have confirmed there is a software update that will take 4-5 hours. My car is booked in to have this done the week after next. I'll keep you posted.

A couple from this evening.......

Thank you, Ryan. It really means a lot to me. It honestly does. 🥰

Put a wee bit in. Hope it helps you get back on your feet.

Thank you, J.R 🥰 I’m not usually an emotional guy, but all the generosity shown this evening and the above words have absolutely caught me by surprise and has made me leak 😪 It wasn’t my choice and not something that I would decide I was doing, but my baby bro was adamant that he wanted to help in some way shape or form and this was his way. It is far too early to see where my life is going to lead after this recent hiccup, but I know I won’t let this beat me and something good will come of this.

I "think" I've rescued the battery? Charger says 8.6v, trickle charge going straight to 14.6v and error code Put a solar charger on it yesterday and now reading 12.2v so back onto the charger for a while, last look was 13+ and it started the car so x fingers it's survived

I'd check the torsion value since you've had the cambelt changed recently, I suspect the timing is out slightly.

I received no info from dealer without me chasing them, they only informed me about the fire in the factory (which was presented to me as the Skoda Octavia factory burnt down and not the subcontractor’s). The initial waiting time was 5-7 months when I placed the order in Aug 21, it’s now 9 months and counting with my car supposedly made since about a month ago but missing parts.

Fuel Filler Flap replacing. http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/472045-skoda-fuel-filler-flap #Life hack. Baking powder & icing sugar mixed and in a jam jar lid or just a piece of paper / card etc as an ant killer. They take it back to the nest supposedly and kill the colony.

Superglue & Baking powder works wonders. When doing it with the hinge on the car a bit trickier. But basically once a little glue holds the flap in the correct position you apply the glue sparingly around the edges and sprinkle / blow the baking powder at the glue. (Youtube videos of Superglue & Baking powder are available) I have never used the bottom stuff with baking powder as the top stuff is amazing with it. There was a clear out offer at Tesco and i spotted that some were wrongly priced so it would have been rude to not buy them.

Complete nonsense to argue that one car is better looking than another. Purely subjective and everybody's view is equally good/bad. Personally, out of all the Tiguan's , the R version is nicer. However, I still prefer the Kodiaq to the vast number, if not all the SUV's out there. Just my opinion.

Wanted to add my building/retrofit/cool-stuff experiences. Always hard to find detail and pictures in the wild so hoping this helps others. Badge and Emblem Replacement - Major Reason - I think the Black looks much better on the Steel Grey body paint than the factory chrome. Tips/Tricks/How-To 1) Give yourself plenty of time and make sure its not going to rain......the warmer the better as it makes removal easier. 2) Hair dryer on a low-setting will help to "loosen" the glue. Well its not glue its more like double-sided sticky-pad material. My car is only a month old so it may be harder on older cars as the adhesive will have set and the padding may come off in little pieces instead. 3) I used dental floss to "saw" through the glue holding the badges and emblems in place. You can use minty-fresh or plain dental floss :-) The front and rear badge have A LOT of the sticky-padding so keep working away at it. I found using an old ATM Card allows you to pry it off and doesn't scratch the paint. There are also 3 protruding plastic notches on the rear of the badge so it won't come off as easy as the emblems. Be warned it is near impossible to get the badges off without snapping them. The joy of the black protruding notches is that it will only line up and fit one way......and that's perfectly straight. 4) I used blue masking tape (painters-tape) to line up the original emblems as once you remove the sticky-pad and the residual adhesive you WON'T see the outline of the old emblems. After the work and cost you don't want to screw it up and have the emblem not straight........it'll **** you off every time you admire your work!! 5) Cleaning off the residual adhesive I used rubbing-alcohol and a CLEAN buffing cloth. Its easier if you can grab a little piece of the pad and SLOWLY pull it off as it comes off in one nice movement without the need to scrape off the adhesive with a fingernail. 6) Shine a light and look for any imperfections, you want the surface to be spotless, clean and dry before fitting the replacements. The joy of rubbing-alcohol is that it dries quick and leaves no residue. They're pretty much the factory-part so remove the rear protective strip and then line it up and press hard on the individual letters. I also used a paint-roller to roll over the emblem before removing the protective clear plastic just to be sure it was stuck on nice and flat. 7) Link for the badges and emblems. You can buy individual or a "pack". I opted for the body-paint coloured front and rear badges and the 3-pack for the emblems. http://www.superskoda.com/Skoda/OCTAVIA-III/Octavia-III-original-Skoda-emblem-INT-version http://www.superskoda.com/Skoda/OCTAVIA-III/Octavia-III-original-Skoda-MONTE-CARLO-black-emblem-set-´SKODA´--´OCTAVIA´--´RS-245´

I don't want to speak too soon as we always know what happens when I do speak too soon. However..., Changed ye olde spark plugs on the car. They were NGKs and looked as though they'd been done before. So I can sleep better knowing the previous owners weren't mechanical sadists, just had complete disregard for the bodywork of the damned thing. Anyway, I digress. Also taped up the frayed wires of the pre-cat lambda. It was one of those things that I looked at and said audibly 'ach it'll be fine'... naw, Ryan, naw it willnae be fine at aw. It's a small fortune (at least to me) to replace it, so I've taped it up with Poundland's "finest" "insulating" "adhesive" tape, as can be seen in my 'Intermittent Witchcraft' thread of confused screaming. I still think it's a bit gutless compared to normal and it's still clinging onto the revs below 2k. Howandever, it doesn't become an inconvenience when caught at the lights at the Whitletts Roundabout where there's a hill start with anti-slip that is the deciding factor as to whether you'll get through the lights or not, and trying to accelerate with a switched off engine is quite a task, you know. Also, it's story time on how my Fabia has now done more "off-roading" than most people with crossovers have. Some lambs had escaped from a field along a farm road I was walking down, and the farmer (who I know) is based down the even smaller road in the first photograph... It gets very bumpy further on but the car handled it great. Here it is afterwards as well, t'is a wee champ.

Donated. I'm a proud man like yourself but sometimes we all need a little help so don't feel bad

Me too.

I’ve never set a speed alert for the car…not sure if mine does that. Travel assist was useless before the 1896 software update. Seems to work much better now, but still some minor bugs, especially for wireless CarPlay which used to work fine with my car.

Hi thanks for the replies I’ve (and brother) have checked all bushes this morning all seem ok ( milage in 80k’s) But since it’s sitting with all wheels off and booked in on Thursday for tracking I decided to clean threads up etc on track rods. i discovered the locking nuts on either side were seized solid. We have spent ages getting them free and cleaned all threads up so everything moves easily Now thinking the tracking has never been done right So hopefully find out Thursday

I hope you don't have this chap's experience; (Lenkräder dürfen gewechselt werden wenn im Fehlerspeicher SOS und/oder Travel Fehler gespeichert ist. Ich habe heute mein siebtes bekommen. Skoda Deutschland ist sich sicher das es nicht das letzte sein wird.) Steering wheels may be changed if SOS and/or Travel faults are stored in the fault memory. I got my seventh today. Skoda Germany is sure that it will not be the last. Posted on Thursday. He has a 2.0 TDi with 48,000 km.

Yes. The bonging was associated with the warning lights appearing, the warning lights going off, or passing a crisp packet in the hedge. The solution was a new steering wheel and a couple of other modules (but my dealer is shy of telling me exactly what has been carried out). By reading the German forums I knew the solution was going to be a new steering wheel before the dealer did. The dealer also told me there were no steering wheels in the spares chain or at the factory. Considering Skoda were pushing out 30,000 Octavias a month in 2019, this seemed implausible. I waited over a month for one to surface and be fitted. If you get the car scanned with VCDS you will probably see; Steering Wheel Touch Recognition Control Module: Subsystem 4 - Part No SW: 5E3 959 542 D HW: 5E3 959 542 D Component: KLR 074 0019; Fault Status: 00000001 Fault Priority: 4 Fault Frequency: 236

Sadly i gave away the last of the Corrida Red paint i had. 8151/F3K/8T8T If near a £1 shop or someone that uses red nail varnish they might have the correct shade for touching that up. Much cheapness.

Loctite All Plastics seems to have done the trick : Unfortunately not before Mrs Gaz dropped the flap on to the drive for no apparent reason, chipping the paint: Gaz

No, it's not the same paddles across the VAG group. There r different ones, mixed n matched across different models

Oil temperature not that bad seen similar on my previous 1.8 tsi yeti when giving it some beans , would imagine towing a load would be similar. If the oil pressure low warning is only recently and I presume you’ve checked the oil level, then I would be questioning what oil was put in at oil change.

I found a couple for VW, someone asked if they fitted a 19 plate Superb, seller answered no. It will come donw to steering wheel part number. The paddles on my superb are not the same as the leon, and different again from a Gold R

Is it a 1.0 or 1.2 engine?

My surgeon was happy with the thinking of the nurse practitioner when he spoke to her to ascertain why she took me off the drip / meds he demanded I was on, which was good enough for me. Complete stark contrast to his reaction when I told him about being given medication I am allergic too! I have since spoken to the anaesthetist who fessed up and apologised for her f’up, but should never have happened as it was written down. Thanks for reiterating what I’ve been told several times by several medical professionals, which has also been explained in the many pieces of literature I’ve been sent home with and have subsequently read 👍

The 2nd Lambda (Oxygen) sensor. Bank is the manifold number, so something like a V8 would have 2 exhaust manifolds Sensor 1 and sensor 2, is from the engine before and after the catalyst. So B1 S2, is the O2 Sensor just after the exhaust catalyst. I had to change that on my Yeti after the engine management light came up, IIRC about £140 from TPS to buy one

March 21 orders you say? Now I`m afraid to call the dealer if my car is in this quota I will get a heart attack

Hadn’t thought of that to be fair - I’ll get one started later on today 👍🏻

Indeed, which is why I'm putting the extensions on it. Much easier to use then, and fun.

Do you know what type of plastic it is? If it is ABS then a smear of acetone, which melts ABS, on both halves and then press together should give a strong bond. Otherwise as long as it is a voean break I would try medium viscosity cyanoacrylate and a small amount of "kicker" although the use of kicker can weaken the joint. I am sure you are aware but if you use Gorilla Glue then you need to be very sparing with it and clamp the joint firmly as it foams otherwise it will push the 2 parts apart.

Bluebells in the local woods (taken on a phone so not the best quality)

I format the usb to NTFS g that sorted it. Cheers fellas

Carbs don't get any more complicated than the number of saccharide molecules they're made up from. Glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose are all single molecule sugars and therefore very easy and quick for the gut to absorb; that's the whole issue about Glycaemic index - the speed at which something can be absorbed means it hits your blood stream quicker but then leaves your blood stream quicker and is converted to fat. Lower GI carb sources are either disaccharides (2 saccharides), oligosoccharides (3-6 ) or polysaccharides (greater than 7 saccharides) which are progressively more complex in structure and need to take time to break down. This diet doesn't make much sense where honey is used - you could do the same with Haribo, Wine gums, Fruit - anything that's made up of simple sugars. in fact, nutritionists would likely all advise not going to bed hungry as they are correct that sleep can be quite energy-intensive. Honey is seen as healthy but its no more natural than sugar cane - it doesn't get refined to within an inch of its life though and with all foods, the real evil is in the refining processes. As for Chris hoy endorsing it - it means he's heard it and doesn't disagree. I doubt anyone can remember the last time he needed to lose bodyfat (and I mean properly lose bodyfat, not the marginal pre-season toning that goes on in pro sports) so I can't see him having leant on the diet enough to swear by it without a payment being made somewhere along the line. He will have been coached and advised on nutrition in far too much depth to start being able to nail 'those 2 teaspoonfuls of sugar before bed' being the clincher to save the world's fattening population. Manuka Honey has an extract called Propolis I think which has supposedly been isolated as being the thing able to bolster your immune system but I think it's just another claim with insufficient science to back-up. Doesn't make it BS, there just isn't a reliable quantity of data to draw meaningful reliable scientific conclusions. Certainly not enough to justify the price tag. BUT - people will go with what they believe and live and let live on that one. Key take-aways from this: 1. Carbs are not inherently evil; we all need carbs for bodily functions to work properly and starving ourselves of that is not the way to live healthily (but that justifies brown rice/wholemeal pasta, not chip shops chips). 2. Sports recovery fuel is stated as a ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein i.e. for every gram of protein, you should be taking 4g of carbs. They both give approximately 4 calories per gram, so a classic after a workout would be 25 grams of protein, 100g of carbs, giving you 500 calories. Baked beans on brown toast is meant to be pretty good (don't give me that 'full of sugar' nonsense, that's part of the point) 3. Go for food with the least additives and processing if possible - 4. The saccharide complexity is key as is timing - doing a workout, get simple sugars in. I've done plenty of rides with a bag of jelly babies in the jersey pocket - couple of those every 5/10 mins is fine. 5. Celebrity endorsements are worth the bung, not the paper they're printed on.

Managed to film a Race Blue press car fully loaded. Here is a more details review, I was sadly again limited with time but managed to cover more details for you.

very surprised to see this to be honest. One thing you do expect is a manual box to last the life of a car, especially a premium brand.

I would definately choose the Toyota over a Skoda 👍

Hello, So, the manual states: So this implies to me that I can put a FLAC file on a USB or SD card, plug it in, and then my Columbus system will play the file in 5.1. Great, I have a collection of 5.1 audio at home so why not rip it and get it working in the car! I tried it with my Tubular Bells 2003 (ripped to 5.1 FLAC from my own DVD Audio Disc), and it didn't seem (to my ears) to do anything apart from downmix it to stereo.... This annoyed me and I set about trying to find out what settings I needed to get this working properly. However, the problem was not the system. It was the PICNIC* who was trying to operate it! These were my original sound settings: Canton Optimisation: Front Canton Surround: 0 Canton Subwoofer: 7 I downloaded some 5.1 test tones from this other forum: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/multichannel-test-files-flac-with-various-channels-sample-rates.24032/ Popped them on an SD card and trundled out to the car again. I picked the 192/24 folder and played the Channnel Test 5.1.flac file and to my astonishment, it played on all 5 channels clearly, but the rear channels were really quiet (maybe 2 * quieter than the fronts), so the TB2003 file was playing in surround, its just the fronts were drowning the rears out and so I thought (incorrectly) it was downmixing it. 😖 So I headed in to the sound settings, and started to balance it all out for my cloth ears. I ended up with the following settings: Canton Optimisation: Front Canton Surround: 7 Canton Subwoofer: 8 This is now very balanced for my ears and surround channels are clearly discernable and work in unison when required. My mistake was, I assumed that Surround "0" was "normal" surround, and that a +'ve figure would bring the rears up to louder than normal settings (the manual states that -9 is "stereo" and +9 is "full surround") However, this is correct but the "normal" surround is so quiet I thought it wasn't working. So ... happy days, all sorted. But I didn't stop there. The manual also stated that the following formats should play: MPEG 2 & 4 (aac, m4p, m4a) at 320kbit/s (48 kHz) Vorbis (Or ogg as its more commonly known) "defined by the format" (whatever that means) So I tried them. I converted my source TB2003 audio to 5.1 Apple Lossless ALAC (m4a) which played perfectly even though the system stated that it would only support m4a at 320kbits and makes no mention of ALAC. I also tried 5.1 aac (apple vbr) at 320kbits, this also played in 5.1. I tried Ogg Vorbis, full quality setting which resulted in a file of 1439 kbps, this also played in 5.1 fine. So you can rip to lossy 5.1 if you so desire and want to save a few MB of space (i'd stick with FLAC or ALAC though personally). So, I hope this helps even 1 person to save some time and settings when trying to get 5.1 audio working on their car, i've been trying to suss this out on and off for a week or so. Now I can rip the rest of my DVD / Hires audio collection ready for the car... Next thing to try is to stop it from pausing between tracks for a brief second without combining it in to one large file... Maybe ALAC will help with that? Cheers, Slick2097. * PICNIC = Problem In Chair, Not In Car / Computer (delete as appropriate)

....how time flies. The great white is off to tradeinsville today having served TeamThomas very well. A recent clutch replacement is the only major 'wear and tear' expense I've incurred and its just ticked over 96k miles. 👍🏻 Back on its original alloys and bearing its 2015(15) plate its off to EMG Kia in Cambridge if anyone is seeking a well looked after and reasonably rapid 😉 3T5. Any potential buyers are welcome to ask any questions. I'll be picking up a 2011(61) 9 seat VW Transporter T5.1, and no it's not staying standard for long.....

So you want to drive another 2 months on cracked tyres (why?) Then change to Ultra high performance summer tyres I thought it was a Superb, not a sports car. Be interesting to see what your winter tyre choice will be, as you are not buying all year (all season) tyres. Remember UHP summer tyres don’t work well below about +10c and are really optimised for +20c upwards. By the way, having a used by Volvo label, doesn’t mean can only be used on Volvos, just means they had some input into its spec, then fitted it to some of their models.

You're driving a Superb MK3, not a Ferrari. For most people including the passengers, the Superb MK3 would be better off with more refined summer touring tyres than UHP summer tyres. Don't think of UHP summer tyres as always better than more balanced summer touring tyres, because they aren't.

"Surely with that set up you get rubbish MPG" You'll be surprised when it's not on boost all the time. In other, once I've got the body work/rusty bits sorted... Time will tell.

Yes but it might have been even better if the oil had been changed or improved type. 😄 - Or it might not. If it's good, or good enough, I can understand that it might not seem or even might not be worth the effort to change. I'm not Novax DJoke-abit suggesting positive thought can purify your gearbox oil. Sorry I've no idea, I don't know Mannol but I'd guess Febi don't 'make' their oils, same way Ford don't. I'll leave you to research what synthetic oils really are - but a good oil is a good oil regardless of its description. Oil colours can vary widely and usually has little significance. ETA: If you like a particular oil and it works for you stick with it, you'd really have to go out of your way to find a poor oil normally. Personally I use Millers Oils as they're a local (well UK) blender and seem to do good products over a range of choice. The ones, from decades back to now, that tell me I'm wrong with my choice of types of oil I've used in my classics often only do dozens or hundreds or few thousands miles annually (like me now) but I've put at least a couple hundred thousands miles plus on the various "classics" I've had and the engines have been fine (well as much as any British 60s/70s engines can be). In my '73 Midget (my only car) I use a Millers 'fully synthetic' 20w-50 and in my Ford Type-9 gearbox I use Millers synthetic GL-5 spec gear oil which I'm assured by those that know better will destroy the "yellow metals" in the box despite Millers and others saying some modern GL-5 don't. I put a Millers GL-4 synthetic in the Fabia gearbox as obviously this is of high quality German engineering. 🤣